Should cross-sex hormone treatment vary with ethnic group?

[Stochastic]

Guidelines for cross-sex hormone treatment of transsexual people have been developed, but no attention has been paid to the specifics of ethnic groups. South East (SE) Asian male-to-female (MtoF) transsexual people may be able to transition to the female sex with lower doses of estrogens/progestins than Caucasians thus reducing health risks. Female-to-male (FtoM) may virilize less profoundly with standard doses of androgens, but this is probably sufficient to pass acceptably as men in view of the less pronounced sex differences in physique in Asians compared with Caucasians. It is timely that studies in Asians are conducted to get a better insight into their specific needs and risks of cross-sex hormone treatment.

Read more below.

Should cross-sex hormone treatment of transsexual subjects vary with ethnic group?
LJ Gooren
Asian J Androl, 2014
http://www.ajandrology.com/preprintarticle.asp?id=133972

[Felix]

Thanks for finding that. It's a good article with a lot of practical and interesting information.

I think hormone therapy should definitely vary by ethnicity, but it probably won't for awhile. It still barely varies by age or weight or much else because doctors are still learning best practices, and research about or including transgender people was just a trickle until recently. The thing with treating Asians and other non-caucasion groups based on studies of entirely white people is a lot like how so much psych research is done on affluent undergraduates. We'll have to fine-tune this stuff eventually if we want effective care to happen.